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Monday, December 20, 2010

Gratitude Monday -- Powering Down

The power was off the other day. It lasted about 45 minutes.
It happened about 3:30 p.m. of an overcast day. That cut down on the number of things I could do, but after opening the blinds a bit more I had enough to see the notes well enough to play guitar for a bit.
It's relaxing, and I swear it helps me think.
But after 15 minutes or so my poor uncallused fingers cried so I had to quit.
So I napped. This gave me a chance to quiet myself enough to truly enjoy the quiet around me.
It's different with the appliances off. Even when I mediate now I am aware of what's humming.
On this occasion all was quiet. It was wonderful.
When I power came back on I set about restoring the assorted clocks and settings on the two VCRs and two DVD-Rs.
I enjoyed the respite from the plugged -in world, but I was glad to have lights and heat and all the other benefits of electricity.
*
I found out the next day that some poor fellow out to set up a nativity scene had caused the outage. He'd been stuck in his truck the whole time. I am grateful this fellow knew enough to stay put.

Unless you live in an apartment and have to go open the doors to the street to get light in the hall and all the neighbours poke their heads out asking if the power is off, then it's just funny/frustrating. One day I am going to tell someone an EMP was set off and WWIII has started & we will never have power again.

Living in a hurricane zone, I've had the experience of life without power for several days at a time. It's like returning to the 19th century. It takes so long to stop flipping a light switch every time you step into a darkened room.

Without the bad weather, I kind of like it - the quiet is so welcome after the constant flood of white noise that is modern life. Of course, a rolling outage during a heat wave is no fun.

There's such a different feel to the day (and especially the night) when the power is off for a while. I'm glad it wasn't long enough for things to cool down too much and I'm especially glad that driver knew not to leave his truck.